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Interesting turn of subject from Toms photo of the harbor, I saw it and thought cranes at first, then boats and then I remembered the photo taken at the other banks NC last spring on my ride back from the Cape Fear 1000 and thought Hmmmm, which lead to the wooden poles theme as that one seemed the most subdued or least obivous feature in Tom's post.

I wonder if boats or cranes would have come out of that one by Tom had I not choosen the sand fence pic. Interesting, and I really like the follow up posts...

I think Torags has been on a river trip through the Grand Canyon as well!

Just for clarification, all photos posted are, theoretically, supposed to be taken by the poster, right? No cut and pastes from Google Image Search or equivalent, right?

This was on a river in western North Carolina.
I, and more of the family, were in another boat.
The guide would go thru "difficult" parts first, then we would follow one at a time
Ya can't see Dad, he was always falling into the bottom of the raft

That's called "The Unit", as in "I'm going to go use the unit". It's a army surplus rocket box modified to accommodate a standard toilet seat. The rest of the containers hold kitty litter to help manage the smell, a box of Clorox 2 to help manage the smell, and rolls of toilet paper.

Talk about a room with a view!

So the funniest story I've ever heard regarding a "unit" goes like this...

A party left on a 21 day trip down the length of the Grand Canyon. All full-canyon trips leave from Lee's Ferry, just downstream of the Glen Canyon Dam. About five miles into the trip, the river flows beneath this highway bridge.

After pushing off, the trip leader realized he forgot to include a toilet seat for the unit. Knowing that a rocket box without a seat would be uncomfortable - especially for the female passengers - he used the satellite phone to contact the support team who had just pushed them into the river. The driver of the support van raced to the gas station just west of the Navajo Bridge and ripped the toilet seat off the toilet. He raced back to the bridge and launched the toilet seat off the bridge and into the abyss, where it was recovered by the boats on the trip and used for the duration of the trip.

I never heard if they replaced the toilet seat they "borrowed" from the gas station, but it's a fun story to tell around the campfire while on a river trip.

When I floated the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon a few years ago the rule was that you had to tinkle in the river (river water is drinking water but it's sanitized, and they let the sediment settle out, too). This was easy for the men but we women had to sometimes do acrobatics to hit the river. It's so dry there that if you peed on land, it would stay for a long time and smell. If you've ever hiked the trail from the rim to the bottom and smelled the donkey pee, you know what I mean.

The "solid stuff" was deposited in an ammunition box with a toilet seat on it. You knew someone was using it if the roll of toilet paper was gone from the bushes at the entrance to the toilet area.

Why Photoshop?

I manged to transform a throw away picture to something mildly usable.

Lisa took this picture from the back seat of our borrowed car as we headed into the city. You can see the car windows reflecting in the sky. I wasn't as meticulous as I could have been cleaning it up, but it's ok for a 10 min job

- I rotated the original 5% to get it straight
- I toned down the blue, added a little contrast
- I cropped it, but that left a piece of blank sky in the upper right
- I cut/copied some sky from the left to patch that
- I used the clone tool, spot healing and blur tool to remove the car window reflections

When I floated the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon a few years ago the rule was that you had to tinkle in the river (river water is drinking water but it's sanitized, and they let the sediment settle out, too). This was easy for the men but we women had to sometimes do acrobatics to hit the river. It's so dry there that if you peed on land, it would stay for a long time and smell. If you've ever hiked the trail from the rim to the bottom and smelled the donkey pee, you know what I mean.

The "solid stuff" was deposited in an ammunition box with a toilet seat on it. You knew someone was using it if the roll of toilet paper was gone from the bushes at the entrance to the toilet area.

We leave our hat on a conspicuous branch along the path to the unit. Occasionally someone will forget the hat and wander off to explore something. That's always well-received by everyone else.